UNSW has secured the top position in Australia for university research partnerships with industry, winning the most funding in the latest round of ARC Linkage Project grants.

UNSW researchers received $8.34 million for 30 projects to commence in 2011.

The biggest grant was awarded to Professor Rose Amal, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials. Her team secured $660,000 for the development of technologies to ensure drinking water quality in the Australian water industry.

The project's research partners are the Australian Water Quality Centre and Water Corporation of WA.

Professor Raphael Grzebieta and his team from the Faculty of Science will identify safety features required to best protect car passengers from injury in a rollover crash. The three-year project has attracted $510,000. Partner organisations are BHP Billiton, Centre for Injury Research, NSW Centre for Road Safety, Office of Road Safety and the Transport Accident Commission.

A team led by Professor Vaughan Carr from UNSW Medicine will receive $429,000 for an Australia-first longitudinal study focusing on 87,000 NSW children. The study will identify developmental factors that expose kids to a range of social and health problems.

Project partners are the NSW Departments of Education and Training and Health.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Les Field congratulated the successful researchers on an outstanding result.

"This is a very strong performance, once again demonstrating UNSW's long tradition and reputation of national leadership in industry-relevant research," Professor Field said.

"Our strong industry links underline our strength in engaging in real-world research and supporting innovative research partnerships."

Discovery grants

UNSW researchers also performed very strongly in ARC Discovery grants, with 85 projects receiving $25.65 million in Federal Government funding.

Combined with the Linkage grants, UNSW has received $34 million in new funding to commence in 2011.

Details of all successful grants can be found at the ARC website.

UNSW Media: Denise Knight, 02 9385 8920 | 0405 207 685